


The Ransom of Red Chief Vorkosigan

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Fluff, Gen, O. Henry-Ransom of Red Chief, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two desperate men decide to kidnap a prominent citizen's son.  The son is a hyperactive little git who makes them think twice.  And... for purposes of the fic, Red Chief is much less breakable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ransom of Red Chief Vorkosigan

**Author's Note:**

> The Vorkosigan Saga and all its characters belong to Lois McMaster Bujold. I am only playing with them.  
> "The Ransom of Red Chief" belongs to O. Henry, and I have humbly parodied his work. 
> 
> For the purposes of this story, distances, locales, and districts have been kept reasonably to canon, but not sqeakily tight. Any changes are for art's sake.

IT LOOKED like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Vorkosigan District when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as William Rivek afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

There was a town down there, called Vorkosigan Surleau,which contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry, belike, as ever tapped a keg of maple mead.

Rivek and me had a joint capital of about six hundred marks, and we needed just two thousand more to pull off a fraudulent land scheme in South Continent. We talked it over on the steps of Hassadar City Hall. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters to stir up talk. We knew that Vorkosigan Surleau couldn't get after us with anything stronger than little skinny hill squirts and maybe some lackadaisical infrared scanners. So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Lord Vorkosigan. The father was respectable, a stern, upright Count's heir and Admiral. The kid was a boy of six, a crip and a dwarf, back hunched like a cat. Rivek and me figured that Vorkosigan would melt down for a ransom of two thousand marks. But wait till I tell you.

About twenty miles from Vorkosigan Surleau was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions. One evening after sundown, we parked a lightflier past old Vorkosigan's house. The kid was there, throwing rocks at the opposite fence.

"Hey, little boy!" says Rivek, "would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?"

The boy catches Rivek neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Rivek, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the lightflier. We took him up to the cave and I hid the lightflier in the cedar brake. After dark I scouted out the territory.

When I got back, Rivek was pasting healing plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. The boy had drawn five stars on the shoulders of his shirt. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

"Ha! cursed Cetagandan, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief Vorthalia the Bold, the defender of the hills?

"He's all right now," says Rivek, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Cetagandans. We're making Buffalo Bill's show look like magic-lantern views of Vorbarr Sultana in the town hall. I'm Old Benin, the Ghem, Vorthalia's captive, and I'm to be scalped at daybreak. By Giaja! that kid can kick hard."

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive, himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his rebels returned, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a speech something like this:

"I like this fine. I never camped out before, 'n' I was six last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Karal Dosie's aunt's speckled hen's eggs. Are there any real Cetagandans in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five kittens. What makes your nose so red, Kye? My father has lots of money. Are the wormholes hot? I whipped Lag Olney twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it take to make twelve?"

Every few minutes he would pick up his stick plasma arc and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to peer out for the hated Cetagandans. Now and then he would let out a whoop.

"Miles," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"

"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?"

"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."

"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life."

We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Vorthalia between us. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his plasma arc and screeching: "Hist! Soldier!" in mine and Rivek's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the Cetagandans. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with a hunchback.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Rivek. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs -- they were terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream in a cave at daybreak.

Red Chief Vorthalia was sitting on Rivek's chest, with one hand twined in Rivek's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing, bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Rivek's scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Rivek's spirit was broken. He never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief Vorthalia had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

"What you getting up so soon for, Kye?" asked Rivek.

"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it."

"You're a liar!" says Rivek."You're afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain't it awful, Kye? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?"

"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the General get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoiter."

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Vorkosigan Surleau I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape with one man plowing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no hillsmen dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolence pervading that section of the external outward surface of Barrayar.

"Perhaps," says I to myself, "it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says I.

When I got to the cave I found Rivek backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Rivek, "and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a stunner about you, Kye?

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. "I'll fix you," says the kid to Rivek. "No man ever yet struck the Red Chief Vorthalia but what he got paid for it. You better beware!"

After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.

"What's he up to now?" says Rivek, anxiously. "You don't think he'll run away, do you, Kye?"

"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home body. But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don't seem to be much excitement around Vorkosigan Surleau on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven't realized yet that he's gone. Anyhow, he'll be missed to-day. Tonight we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand marks."

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief Vorthalia had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Rivek, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A rock the size of an egg had caught Rivek just behind his left ear. He fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Rivek sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Kye, do you know who my favourite Biblical character is?"

“Rest a minute more,” I said.

"King Herod," says he. "You won't leave me here alone, will you, Kye?"

I caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.

"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?"

"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt old William. But what did he hit me for? "I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day."

"That's for you and Mr. William to decide. He's your playmate today. I'm going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once."

I made him and William shake hands, and then I took William aside and told him I was going to Silvy Vale, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Vorkosigan Surleau. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Vorkosigan that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

"You know, Kye," says Rivek, "I've stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood -- in poker games, dynamite outrages, municipal guard raids, and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. You won't leave me long with him, will you, Kye?"

"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letter to old Vorkosigan.”

William and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief Vorthalia strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. William begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred marks instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand marks for that thirty-pound chunk of wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred marks. You can charge the difference up to me."

So we collaborated a letter that ran this way:

Aral Vorkosigan, Count's Heir:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Vorkosigan Surleau. It is useless for you or the most skilful armsmen to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred marks in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply-- as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger tonight at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Rose Creek, on the road to Silvy Vale, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box. The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Vorkosigan Surleau.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.

I addressed this letter to Vorkosigan, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone."

"Play it, of course," says I. "What kind of a game is it?"

"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief Vorthalia, "and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Cetagandans are coming.” 

"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. William will help you foil the pesky Cetagandans."

"What am I to do?" asks William, looking at the kid suspiciously.

"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"

"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the scheme going. Loosen up."

William gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit's when you catch it in a trap.

"How far is it to the stockade, kid?" he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!"

The Black Scout jumps on William's back and digs his heels in his side.

"For Heaven's sake," says William, "hurry back, Kye, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I'll get up and warm you good."

I walked over to Silvy Vale and sat around the post-office and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears Vorkosigan Surleau is all upset on account of Lord Vorkosigan's boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some gum-leaf, referred casually to the price of groats, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-flier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Vorkosigan Surleau.

When I got back to the cave William and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and William wobbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. William stopped and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

"Kye," says William, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but I couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with masculine habits of self-defense, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on William, "that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been.”

"What's the trouble, William?" I asks him.

"I was rode," says Rivek, "the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given groats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the love-lies-itching yellow. I tell you, Rivek, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

"But he's gone" -- continues Rivek-- "gone home. I showed him the road to Vorkosigna Surleau and kicked him about eight feet nearer there. I'm sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or William Rivek to the madhouse."

Rivek is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

"Rivek," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, is there?

"No," says Rivek,"nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?"

"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a took behind you."

Rivek turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Vorkosigan fell in with our proposition. So Rivek braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play Vordarian in the Pretendership war with him as soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left -- and the money later on -- was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of hill squirts should be watching for any one to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy runs up the road, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a piece of paper into it and runs away again.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Rivek. The sum and substance of it was this:

Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Miles home and pay me two hundred and fifty marks in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbors believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

Very respectfully,  
ARAL VORKOSIGAN

"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent -- "

But I glanced at Rivek, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

"Kye," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Lord Vorkosigan is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let the chance go, are you?"

"Tell you the truth, William," says I, "this little he ewe-lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away."

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted stunner and a pair of riding boots for him, and we were going to hunt pirates the next day.

It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Vorkosigan's front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, Rivek was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Vorkosigan's hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself like a leech to Rivek's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

"How long can you hold him?" asks Rivek.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Vorkosigan, "but I think I can promise you ten minutes."

"Enough," says Rivek. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Vorbretton, Vorvolynkin,and Vortaine Districts, and be legging it trippingly for the spaceport."

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Rivek was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of Vorkosigan Surleau before I could catch up with him.


End file.
